Thanks to all who contributed captions for our ninth caption contest. As it goes in the humor writing business there are good weeks and not so good weeks. This was a not so good week. While I appreciate the participation, none of the captions offered create a salable cartoon. Maybe if we had thousands of people contributing, out of that many submissions there would emerge a clear winner. But with only 10 participants, it’d a little harder. This isn’t your New Yorker’s caption contest.

Here was the original caption for the cartoon:

I’d like those who participated to know that I appreciate your contributions, but if I’m going to send one of these captioned cartoons to an editor, it has to be strong enough. As a classical trumpet teacher of mine once replied, when asked why he never tried performing jazz in public, “I have a reputation to keep.”

Despite our collective failure to pan a gold nugget of humor this week, there will be a caption contest #10. Whether or not there will be any entries for caption contest #10 depends on how people feel about rejection. However, I would submit that to succeed in the humor business, being comfortable with rejection is a must.

And now a word from Robert Weber: